This is seen only in the case of the holy band: I mean the Apostles. Listen to what blessed Luke says: _They went from the council rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for His Name_. Now to others it seems ridiculous that dishonour should be accounted honour and a joy, but to those who follow Christ this desire is held to be most blessed of all. If anyone would give me all heaven or those chains, I would choose the chains. If anyone were to place me with the angels above or with Paul in chains, I would choose his prison. If anyone were to make me one of those heavenly Powers or Thrones, or a prisoner as Paul was, I would choose to be a prisoner. Nothing is more blessed than those chains. Would that I could now be in those regions; for it is said that the chains are preserved, as well they may be, and I am in admiration of those men full of desire for Christ; would that I could see those chains, which devils have feared and trembled at, which angels reverence. Nothing is better than suffering some adversity for the sake of Christ. I deem Paul blessed not so much because he was ravished into paradise as for being thrown into prison. I call him blessed not so much because he heard ineffable words as for enduring chains. I hold him blessed not so much for being carried into the third heaven as for his chains. That these were greater than those things, understand what he himself thought of them. He did not say, ‘I, who have heard mysterious words, beseech you,’ but what? _I, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you._ And if he did not use the expression in all his epistles, it is not astonishing, for he was not always in chains, only at certain times. I would choose rather to suffer adversity for Christ than to be honoured by Christ. This is true honour and glory, higher than any other. If he became a servant for my sake and divested Himself of His praise, nor deemed that He was glorified except in being crucified for me, what ought I not to suffer? Listen to Him as He says, _Glorify Me, O Father_. What sayest Thou, Lord? Thou art led to the cross between thieves and malefactors, to suffer the most shameful death; Thou art to be spit upon and struck, and this Thou callest glory? ‘Yea,’ He answers, ‘I suffer these things for those whom I love, and account them a glory indeed.’ If He Who loves the wretched and miserable calls this glory, if He finds His glory, not in being on His Father’s throne, nor in honour, but in being dishonoured, and prefers it, how much more am _I_ bound to hold these things a glory! O happy chains, O blessed hands which those chains adorned! Those hands of Paul’s which raised up the lame man in Lystra and made him walk were less honourable than when covered with chains. If I had been living in those days, it is then that I would have embraced them and placed them on my eyes; I would not have ceased caressing the hands which had been found worthy to wear chains for my Lord’s sake.